Portuguese oenologist and wine critic Aníbal Coutinho has combined his passion for wine and his taste for travel into a pioneering project: Astronaut wines.
Born in 1968 in Armação de Pêra, Algarve, he holds a degree in civil engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico and has been a full member of the Order of Engineers for 25 years. His taste for wine brought him back to university, this time at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, where he specialized in viticulture and oenology, after completing his master’s degree in the same field. In 2016, he completed his PhD program in food engineering. He is a board member of Associação Portuguesa de Enologia, the oenologists’ guild. As a winemaker, he has vinified and signed wines in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany and South Africa. Recently, he had the honor of designing the wine for the Portuguese Football Federation to celebrate the country’s most successful sporting achievement, Euro 2016.
To compose a symphony or write a book requires no in-depth knowledge of the place in which we find ourselves. Producing a wine in different parts of the world goes far beyond the theoretical knowledge or inspiration of an oenologist. You have to integrate the traditional wine culture and vineyards of each country, in order to create a first-rate wine. Portugal, of which he is a national, and South Africa are the countries where Aníbal Coutinho produced the first Astronaut wines.
Each country has its own star grape varieties, emblems of the winemaker and bearers of the history and tradition of terroirs the world over. In Portugal, a country with a longstanding winemaking tradition, the oenologist has created two wines: Astronaut Touriga Nacional and Astronaut Arinto, the country’s most emblematic grape varieties. His time in South Africa gave him the skills and dexterity to produce two more Astronauts: Astronaut Chenin Blanc and Astronaut Pinotage. These four wines will be the leaders of the Astronaut project.
“This project is conceivable in the 21st century because ease of transport and communication means we can be in different places in a short space of time. Travel is the motto and wine the reason, hence the name Astronaut”, confesses mentor Aníbal Coutinho.